Hadron Physics at the Charm and Bottom Thresholds and Other Novel QCD Physics Topics at the NICA Accelerator Facility
SLAC-PUB-15050 Hadron Physics at the Charm and Bottom Thresholds and Other Novel QCD Physics Topics at the NICA Accelerator Facility Stanley J. Brodsky1 1SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory Stanford University, Stanford, California 94309, USA The NICA collider project at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna will have the capability of colliding protons, polarized deuterons, and nuclei at an effective nucleon-nucleon center- p of mass energy in the range sNN = 4 to 11 GeV. I briefly survey a number of novel hadron physics processes which can be investigated at the NICA collider. The topics include the formation of exotic heavy quark resonances near the charm and bottom thresholds, intrinsic strangeness, charm, and bottom phenomena, hidden-color degrees of freedom in nuclei, color transparency, single-spin asymmetries, the RHIC baryon anomaly, and non-universal antishadowing. I. INTRODUCTION The NICA collider project at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna [1,2] will have the capability of colliding nucleons, polarized deuterons, and nuclei at an effective nucleon-nucleon center-of mass energy in the range p sNN = 4 to 11 GeV. In tis brief report, I will discuss a number of novel hadron physics topics which can be investigated at the NICA collider. The topics include the formation of exotic heavy quark resonances near the charm and bottom thresholds, intrinsic strangeness, charm, and bottom phenomena, hidden-color degrees of freedom in nuclei, color transparency, single-spin asymmetries, the RHIC baryon anomaly, and non-universal antishadowing. II. THE ULTRA-LOW ENERGY DOMAIN USING VARIABLE-ANGLE COLLISIONS If the interaction region at NICA is designed so that A and B can collide at a variable finite center of mass angle 2 2 2 0 < θ < π, then the effective CM energy squared s = (pA + pB) = MA + MB + 2EAEB(1 − βAβB cos θ) will span from very low energies to beyond the bottom flavor threshold.
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